


In Strength and In Power

by Royalrastafariannaynays



Series: In Name and In Deed [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Animal Death, Dark Magic, Dragon Riders, Dragons, Gen, In Name and In Deed, M/M, Magic, POV Dirk Strider, Sibling Bonding, and dark themes, as in very destructive soul magic, dependent to the series, the M rating is for slight nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7800394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalrastafariannaynays/pseuds/Royalrastafariannaynays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since that final battle, you've been wondering. It's a narrow wondering, full of as little awe and actual wonder as possible. Blank, careful curiosity. Yes, you've been lonely and tense. Yes, you're probably being needlessly reckless as a result. Again. But you're still... curious.</p><p>Can you control it? The power you revealed. </p><p>Can you restrain it, and make it your own? If you have it, you might as well know how. </p><p>Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Strength and In Power

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is a ficlet from Dirk's POV, some minor stuff about magic and relationships and things! (from my fic In Name and In Deed) have fun! <3
> 
> i didn't tag it in relationships cause i didn't want it to show up in a tag for something that it's not, but this does contain a tiny tiny bit of (PAST) eridan/dave. just wanted to letcha know!

The grit of the dirt pricks into your knees, even through your pant legs. 

Jake’s fingers twist in your hair. The thick fingertips scrape into your scalp, and you can practically feel the grease and soot seeping into your skin. 

You swallow. A heady scent works its way through your nostrils. 

He breathes your name, just a gasp.

You’re a lonely person. This is a bad fuckin’ habit. 

He knows it, too. 

Sometimes you think he’s probably the same way.

Yet he’s always willing to give it a go. 

Amazing.

He’ll be happily married or something someday. He doesn’t do romance or relationships like that, he’s told you before. Wants to give the world his progeny.

That’s fine. You don’t really do that either.

Fingers pet across your forehead, and you withdraw. 

Wipe the back of your hand across your mouth. 

Put your gloves back on.

Briefly relent the notion that you won’t be cuddling this time.

Stand.

Check your clothes for untoward stains.

Give him a pat on the side, he gives you a kiss on the cheek, and you walk away. 

He goes back to his job, you go back to being a complete social degenerate. But you feel more satisfied, more whole. That connection of a hand clutching your head for dear life, the warmth of another person.

A favor.

He’ll pay you back for it, too. You just owed him one.

It works out. 

Karkat gives you a sidelong look as you cross around the other side of the forge. 

_Where is Dave today?_

Damara groans and shudders tiredly as you lift yourself to sit astride her back. 

_Are we done here?_ She asks you. 

Nodding, knowing that she’ll get the feeling behind it, you grab one of your saddle handles. 

Damara’s voice is deep and soothing within the private confines of your head. She’s always been that way, for you. 

The idea that she sounds sinister or dark to some people doesn’t take you by surprise. But your dragon has always found just as much solace in you, as you her. Maybe she softens for you. You haven’t asked. 

You really don’t need to. 

Unlike your tendency to lie about what you have with Jake, you’ve never had to lie to yourself about what you have with Damara. 

There’s an understanding there, a very literalized bond. The blood in her teeth tastes like cupric oxide and metal. It makes you bite down a little on your tongue. She’s been hunting while you were busy. 

It’s a little disorienting when she eats. Damara eats more land animals than the other coastal dragons that you’ve met. It’s disorienting, mainly because of the taste of the blood. Fish blood is less… volatile in your mind. She’s more open about sharing than Aradia is, but doesn’t talk much about it. 

But something about her cold nature makes her relish the warm food more. Sometimes it bleeds over. 

You get a lot of hankerings for red meat. 

_It was a rabbit. Soft one. Fatty. Male._

“Fascinating,” you murmur, sincerely. 

She grins back at you, and yips a laugh. 

When you arrive at the Roost, Terezi is there. For once. 

She’s taken Dave’s slot in the Roost easily, with her weird color smell thing and her dragon taking up half the barn space. Latula likes sea glass and shells, and there’s a pile of it in the corner. She’s curled up by it right now, head resting on the rocks, and claws shifting deep within the rolling mountain of conches and glittering pebbles. 

When you dismount and remove her saddle, Damara heads straight over. Silk pillows go everywhere as she sifts for her favorite. She throws it on top of Latula, then curls up on her to resume her nap. 

Today’s a lazy day for them. It’s fine. 

“Rez?” You call out. There’s a murmur from upstairs. 

“Please save me from myself,” she groans, and, whelp. 

You look longingly at your project in the corner. 

It’s almost done. 

But you have the rest of the day. 

When you get to the top of the stairs, and push aside her curtain, she’s laying half naked on a pile of glass bottles. Shirt and underwear are thankfully present.

The almost garish colors she's decorated this little cranny with almost always catch you off guard. Your brother was cluttered, sure. But he had fairly plain taste in color. 

“What happened?” You ask her. 

Light, you miss Dave. 

It’s making you sentimental.

“Why are we both so good at being lonely?” She asks, instead of answering. You don’t really have an answer for that. 

“I don’t really have an answer for that,” you reply, and sit next to the pile. She’s a fucking mess. If a mess had a name, it would be Terezi on her off days. 

“Vriska hasn’t replied to my letters in three months,” she whispers. 

That sucks. 

“That sucks,” you reply. Thinking of Jake, you wince. “We’re both way too good at being lonely.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. As if it hadn’t been her idea in the first place. 

A gesture with one of her hands, and you lean over to rest your face on her belly. Soft. God, you wish you fancied women. At all. They’re so soft. Terezi grunts softly. 

“You’ve got grease in your hair,” she grumbles. 

“Yeah, and my breath smells like dick, too.” 

She cackles loudly.

 

* * *

 

_Dave’s hands are fisted in the Little Prick’s flowing ebony locks when you walk in from your afternoon._

_“Alright, playtime’s over. Pack it up, Ampora.”_

_The little shit stares at you for about twenty-six seconds, before throwing you an especially obscene gesture and going right back to shoving his tongue into your little brother’s mouth._

_Dave pushes him away a bit, and you’re a little proud of him when he doesn’t look at all embarrassed. By your presence, at least._

_“The fuck, Strider?” Ampora steps back from where he’d been pushing Dave into the wall, and glares between you both. “I believe I asked for one rider, not two of them with the added bonus of not being able to mind their own fuckin’ business.”_

_“Come back tomorrow, I have a free day,” Dave assuages, pressing three of his fingernails into a very well-forming bruise on the Little Prick’s neck. Impressive. That must have taken awhile. The kid looks miffed, but gives Dave a parting bit of tonsil hockey before you make sure to hit his heels with the door on his way out._

_Once Eridan’s gone, Dave looks haunted. Now that the object of his distraction is gone, he looks awful. His eyes have bags bigger than the enchanted ones at the Bazaar, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. It’s not the kid, either. It’s Dave’s… issue._

_“Has it gotten any better?” you ask. Trying to be gentle, coming off as emotionless instead. It's fine. He knows what you mean. And you both know that **it** hasn't improved._

_After he woke up from that coma when he was what. Seven summers? You've been nigh inseparable. It got a little annoying at times, when you were growing into being an adult and he was just hitting puberty. Real annoying. But the guilt that the incident caused you... Dave woke up with so much wonder in his little eyes that you had to look away. A creaky little sob and he snuggled right back into his_ (his) _dragon companion. Who chose him. And he wasn't ready yet, and it was half your fault that he got hurt. After that, you worked very hard on helping him be his best._

_When he saw some flying racers, and wanted to be like them, you knew you had no choice. He was ten. It was time to get advice and training regimens for him._

_Racing would be the safest for him, anyway. Dave's always trying to prove himself. It's the best way._

_And you would_ not _be letting him go to war._

_Ten years after he bonded, Dave's gotten himself into trouble again._

_Dave’s been taking this real bad. He hasn’t left the room for a week. Aradia’s been getting antsy, too, not being able to go riding until you get back to the barn to take them out for training. That can’t be helping Dave stay calm._

_The look that crosses Dave’s entire face is painfully obvious. It’s gotten worse._

_“He shortened by another ten years today,” Dave whispers._

_With a grimace, you reach over to grab his upper arm. Squeeze. He looks down on it._

_“Training?” you ask. You’ll have to go out and pick up some sleeping herbs for him from the apothecary before you go to bed._

_“We can go home in a few days. Try to hold it together until the race. Gotta make money.”_

_Dave nods, to both, and follows you out to the wide open room. His connection with Aradia has also been shot, lately. She doesn’t understand what’s bad about what he’s going through. Aradia likes death, that’s one of her things. It’s spooky, but she finds human lifespans fascinating._

_Of course she has sympathy. But she’s still young for a dragon. Still getting a grasp on proper socialization._

_Nothing is ever always perfect between riders and their dragons. It’s okay._

 

* * *

 

_Dave falls, for the second time. He’s working on it, and you’re going very easy on him. Predictable strokes, easy patterns._

_He meditated too hard a week ago._

_It broke loose something bad. And now he can’t tell **when** a lot of things are. _

_Dave is constantly seeing patterns and lifetimes. Different extensions of people and their destinies. He’s exhausted. It’s not so bad for inanimate objects, because he and Aradia got that harnessed a long time ago._

_But he started seeing how long people had until they would die._

_He’s a mess._

_Actually, the only thing properly distracting him is that rich heir kid. The one who’s currently on break from his arms training. By the calluses on Ampora's fingers, he’s a bowman. Not surprising. But when Dave can focus on one thing, it helps this whole deal. Even if that one thing is apparently rapidly disintegrating._

_But hey, sex is good for a lot of things. And apparently the afterglow is a nice, quiet period of normalcy for Dave. Which you found out after a very tired and awkward conversation._

_So you’re not gonna chase the rich kid away._

_Even if you can tell he’s bad news._

_“I can’t tell which thing you’re going to do,” he complains. You don’t fault him for it._

_“Try to see which one of the things I’m doing is clearer,” you try, patient. Dave groans, stomps his foot._

_It’s gonna be a long trip._

_“It needs control, not suppression,” you push. Your abilities took a long time to control. Under ward for five months at first, so that your soul wouldn’t separate as you slept._

_“It’s not normally like this,” he complains again. Wheedles. His voice cracks. It’s still doing that. Hasn’t fully settled yet._

_“It’s not easy. I’m just seeing… everything, it’s not a choice,” Dave mutters, and hey. He successfully blocks one of your slaps to the side of his head. By his face, it was half luck._

_With a very clearly telegraphed swing of your leg into the side of his knee, he falls again._

_“Fuck you, Dirk,” he almost yells. Frustrated. It’s not really directed at you. But it still stings._

_The training isn’t to prepare for battle. It turned into that, for a time. But the training is an exercise to sharply hone your skills._

_Dave. Little Davey. The baby brother. The one with the closest abilities and the most passive magic. He is by no means weak._

_But you’re convinced that control could help him._

_If it can’t, mom can always help put it away for a while._

_Aradia’s agreed to it already._

 

* * *

 

Karkat and Terezi are sitting in the shade of a tree nearby, eating sausage and crackers and just chatting it up. 

The other day, you managed to finally convince Karkat that he was able to pull the shards of your being back together. The power excess, in the battle with Lord English, had caused you to splinter. It had been nearly a decade and a half since the last time that happened. 

He shouted your name one time, and suddenly it snapped back into place. 

What, Dirk, someone might ask, snapped back into place? 

You. Everything. All of it. 

There was a kind of secure fastening at the edges now, something that would probably need to be ripped out completely. Like stitches. Or tough nails.

But it was fragile, flexible. Less like the restraining wards from your childhood training and more like a hair clasp. 

A light push could sever it. 

But that’s why you wanted Karkat here. 

If you separate again, he can weld you back together. 

When you were very young, you lost a part of yourself to your magic. It’s never coming back. 

And you’ll never go through that again. 

Dave stands across from you. There’s a click and swish as he unsheathes his sword. 

Karkat stops talking, very obviously zeroing in on what you’re doing. 

Latula is seated next to Terezi, watchful eyes open. 

Aradia and Damara are at the ready. 

You look up at Dave. Like you’ve done this a million times before, he nods. 

The feeling of power concentrates in the air. Dave’s eyes go black. All three of the dragons growl, a reflexive warning. 

And then… 

Nothing fucking happens. 

Five minutes pass, Dave can’t concentrate Aradia’s magic any harder, and the wind isn’t kicking up or dying off and the dragons are making confused gestures with their heads and hands. 

“What in Light’s name was that?” Karkat wonders aloud. His teeth are gritted solidly in the center of his mouth, like he knows something. 

Carefully, you look from Dave to his lover. 

Sideways, you ask him. 

“I don’t know, what _was_ it?” 

He makes a frustrated noise, and Dave groans. Readily leaping to his defense, Dave steps toward you. “Don’t give him a hard time, it’s not like he knows any more than we do.”

What a kid.

“Well, Dave,” you reply, rolling your chin back in his direction. “It’s almost like the only thing that’s different here is that Vantas junior isn’t fighting with us. Besides a few other things. But I really don't think we need to be in danger for it.”

Dave opens his mouth to protest, but then something lights up for him. He knows you’re right. 

You had a feeling this would be the case. 

Karkat frowns at you. His scar wrinkles on his nose with the expression, and draws his brow down just a tad too far on one side. 

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” He asks. He’s got the feeling, too. Hear that? No denial. Whatsoever. 

“Well, how about you try giving us the order, like last time? Step over here,” you offer, gesturing with your sword. 

Arms crossed, Karkat ambulates to about ten feet away, but equidistant from the both of you. 

He looks doubtful. Excited, grumpy, still scowling, but doubtful. 

“Alright then,” he starts. And you can already feel it. Like a finely honed blade making an appearance in the fight. It’s just a feeling. Just barely there. 

A tickle on the surface of the earth, when your every breath is an earthquake.

“Dave,” he says, and Dave’s eyes widen. Just so. Surprise. His mouth gapes a tiny bit. Karkat looks similarly back at him. 

Whoa. Are they… do they have similar magic types? Somehow? If Dave, who’s less trained and less prone to feeling quirks in magic than you, noticed. 

There has to be something there.

But that'll be explored another time. Maybe between them. Alone. With less clothes. 

Very hopefully when you're not around. 

Yikes. 

“Harness it,” Karkat murmurs, softer than a butterfly’s kiss. His voice to Dave… there’s a nauseating amount of love there. It drips from their connection, shining more brightly than the sun in the sky. 

Dave’s skin flashes, and ripples with scales. He winces bodily, and hisses when claws cleave into his fingertips. When his eyes open, they’re blacker than the night. 

Dave twirls his blade experimentally. You see some focus happen for him, as he stares at the blade. Aradia chirps happily, and the metal starts to glow with fire.

Fascinating.

 _Sincerely, this time?_ Damara almost chuckles. 

_**Abso-fuckin-lutely**_ , you tell her. And you mean it. 

Dave can’t keep breaking all his lightbedamned swords like this. 

That blade will never be the same. 

It’s okay. His soon-to-be-betrothed is a fucking blacksmith. 

When Dave’s glow fades, and the skin of his hands returns to normal, you watch with grim fascination. 

Will it be slower for you? Without the similar magic? 

It’s been months and months since you did this the first time. Will it even work?

Karkat looks at you, and you feel it. A tickle, barely there. 

“Dirk, harness,” he says, and the command lights you up. Like a festival bonfire.

What in Light…?

Karkat’s eyes are on you, you can feel them. 

Your hands and feet feel shot with electricity, and as you step forward, the ground feels like it’s dragging backwards against the toes of your boots.

Damara huffs a breath through your mouth, acrid ice and the stink of old fish seeping through your lips. It’s something you’ve gotten used to, over the years. 

The itch is a change, though. 

Your hands prickle ferociously, and golden scales creep up into your hands. Like peeling a fruit, they push up under the top layer of the dermal tissue and pierce the flesh.

It doesn’t hurt until the claws start coming in again. 

You still have pin-sized scars on the tops of your digits, from the last time this happened. The talons rip through your fingertips like new shoots of grass through the dirt. Dave startles when you shout a curse toward the ground. In the heat of battle, it hadn’t felt this bad. In the heat of battle, the horrible itch of the scales hadn’t felt so strong on your neck and face.

You look at your blade, and it’s vibrating. Not in your hands, no, but it’s shaking the very air around it. 

Something in you feels desperately out of control. 

Whoa.

The blade etches the fabric of reality as you swoop it down experimentally. It doesn’t cut the grass. In fact, it swings straight through the dirt itself.

Dave’s eyes narrow at you.

“What was that?” he mutters. 

After a few beats, you let yourself breathe. The fresh wave of air into your lungs is a blessing. “It’s just like the battle. I didn’t cut him either,” you mumble. 

_Mumbling. You._

After the fight, you hadn’t needed too much consolation. You had some long talks with Roxy, and you’re fine. 

After all, you’re in control. You’re excellent at control. 

You. 

You’re absolutely in control. 

The power in the blade seems to bend the very air. It sings with ozone that cuts into your nostrils. It crackles up your arms and down into your spine.

Karkat steps back, and you can feel yourself push on that barrier he’d placed around your soul.

Clamping down on it, you huff.

Dave is still frowning, when you look up. 

But you’re confident. You’ve got it. 

This ability, this concentration of power… it’s amazing. It’s almost addictive. Back when you’d felt it in the battle, you’d been terrified by it. Overwhelmed. Flabbergasted by your abilities. 

You swing the blade again.

 

A circle, twice, over the shoulder and a cut down. Just to watch how it moves in the air. It doesn’t even feel like a solid object in your hands. Damara flickers a little warning into your head. 

_**What’s up?** _

_Watch where you point that. The rending of special realities is not something to wield lightly. You are already drawing on my power to sustain it._

_**Right.** _

The cut down goes straight through the dirt.

Damara’s teeth flash with regret, and Dave’s eyes shoot wide. 

There’s a high-pitched cry from a hill in the grass, and then some strangled whining.

It sounds like a baby crying.

In a panic, you lose the harness on Damara’s power. She is sitting, calm. But a very slightly sated feeling is coming from her. As if… no. it can’t be. 

The scales and claws somehow feel worse going back in.

She’s still worried, confused about the sensation she’s feeling. 

You drop your now-solid sword, and run toward the noise.

Hidden behind a small hill is a deep hole. Two red fox kits tumble out of the opening.

Shit.

Within, the crying is fading out.

Shit shit shit. 

You can barely make out the form of a fox, their mother. She lies on her side, one leg and her head desperately trying to lift as she whines.

She’s dying. 

She can’t move half of her body, and it’s discolored from the rest of the otherwise vibrant fur.

You watch in horror as she suddenly stops breathing.

The fox kits are so small. 

They back away from your hands and hiss at you.

You did this.

_**Shitshitshitshitshit** _

You’re not in control anymore.

This power, this cruelty.

 _Dirk. Dirk, you need to calm down,_ Damara’s voice says, soothingly. 

You took the life from her. The soul from her. 

Your hands shake as one of the kits chirps at you, ears back. Lip curled in an attempt at ferociousness. The other noses at its mother and attempts to nurse before realizing that she isn’t producing milk.

Everything severs. 

Those stitches on the sides of your conscience rip wide open, splaying for the world like the cheap and easy lay you know you are. 

And it aches, something aches in your chest as you clutch at it. 

The fox kits are still hissing at you, crying, whining. 

They’re so small. 

They were born so late in the year. So late. They’ll never survive the upcoming winter alone.

You can see two voids now, on either side of the kits. The void on your left is reaching for you, clawing. 

The one on the right is giving you its middle finger. Trying to get away.

Hell, these kits won’t survive the night.

The void hums sweet nothings at you. Just one more piece. One more.

It’ll take the piece that still wants Jake. That would be fine. No pain.

No more pain, from that. 

It only got a tiny taste, last time. 

Only got a taste before Mom saved you.

“DIRK!” 

**_SNAP_ **

Everything springs once more into startling clarity. 

There’s a fox kit chewing on your hand, and Karkat has his hands on your shoulders. 

You’re falling over. 

“No more of this, Dirk. No more. You can’t handle it,” he commands you. 

The vise on your soul slams shut. The splinters glue back into one whole like shavings to a magnet. 

The fox hasn’t stopped chewing on you. 

You pick it up. 

It struggles in your hand. 

The birds have stopped making noise nearby, and a wind blows all your hair into your eyes.

“I have to take care of them,” you say. Loudly. A diversion. 

Karkat splutters. You hear Dave sigh. He's irritated, exasperated, disbelieving. When you glance over, Terezi is halfway from the tree to the three of you. Her eyes are glowing, red. Latula’s got her gaze set on you. 

Terezi smacks you upside the head. She misses twice. 

The third time, you move into range. 

“We have foxes now,” you tell her. 

Terezi snarls at you. 

“You reckless piece of shit!” 

You’re shaking at the shoulders. Dave crouches in front of you. One of the fox kits is already asleep in the extra food bag. He’s shaped it like a bowl, to transport them. How long were you out of it?

The kit with the black legs. 

You’ll name it Wave. 

_It is a fair choice. You do enjoy the ocean._

Dave looks so concerned. Less surprised than the other two, but concerned. Damara is there, too, a little farther away, but very obviously calm. She knows that you’re fine. You’ve been through this before. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t do this again. It’s too powerful.” 

At that, Dave’s surprise shines through. 

“Did you just admit to a weakness?” He asks, aghast.

Vantas is still behind you. You try to shrug off his grip. It doesn’t work. He’s very firmly holding you. 

It’s not too bad. His hands are sturdy and supportive.

Dave made a good choice. 

What do fox kits even eat?

 

* * *

 

When Karkat comes with Dave to check on you, you’re sitting up and working on something. The foxes are climbing all over you, already used to your presence. 

Wave and Tooth. Tooth is the bitey one. 

Terezi helps you feed them sometimes. But they’re your responsibility in the end. 

Thankfully they already know how to shit and piss on their own. And it was surprisingly easy to get them to do it in a box near the door. 

But you have to feed them six times a day. Some kind of milk and honey solution you whittled out of a rancher in town. And they’re nightmarishly loud at night. Terezi has been sleeping at Smith Vantas’s house four out of the six days you’ve had the cubs. 

When they do sleep, they sleep curled on your chest at night. They’re good at clinging to your shoulders while you climb your ladder. 

Damara doesn’t have much tolerance for them, but they stay away from her anyway. Unless you’re riding. 

You’ve only taken them out on her back twice. 

But they’re already used to flying. It’s amazing. 

“Hey. How are you?” Vantas asks. Straight to the point. He’s got a hickey the size of a mountain on his neck. 

For that, you hold up a hand for Dave to slap.

He does, and you get a good talking-to from Karkat. 

Terezi laughs from her loft space.

 

* * *

 

You don’t want to test yourself again.

Not like that. 

Not ever.

**Author's Note:**

> hey all! hope everyone is having a good week! i decided to write a couple extra ficlets before i put out the epilogue, so that will most likely be postponed by a short while :0 
> 
> I'll see y'all soon!


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